Kwid vs Alto 800 vs Eon: Small cars, big battle

Its SUV-inspired stance makes it look big, but the Renault Kwid is almost the same size as the Maruti Alto 800.

This week Renault launched its small car, the Kwid, in India. Purposefully built for the emerging markets, the Kwid is the first vehicle to come out of the Renault-Nissan Alliance Team’s new CMF-A platform—Common Module Family—a system which allows Renault and Nissan to build a wider range of cars from a smaller pool of parts. It will primarily compete with Maruti Alto 800 and Hyundai Eon. From purely a product point of view, the Kwid seems to have some advantages over its competitors. One, its SUV-inspired stance ensures that it looks bigger than it actually is. Two, it gets the most spacious cabin in the segment. Three, the claimed fuel-efficiency of the Kwid is the highest among the three. Four, it gets goodies such as a touchscreen media navigation system that is generally found in cars a segment higher. On the downside, Renault (160+) doesn’t have the dealership strength of Maruti (1,500+) or Hyundai (600+). So as to reach out to the masses, the company has launched the Kwid Virtual Showroom—a live sales demonstration portal—and a Kwid App using which customers can book the car. It remains to be seen if Renault will be able to repeat the Duster success with the Kwid.